by Stacey Lynn
When I was a little girl, I wanted to own an equestrian farm.
After that, a hairstylist.
I could be a mechanic or a bottom feeder in some corporate conglomerate, one of the many thousands of mice hired to run their races with small rewards.
All I knew was that I was desperate to do something to make all the ugly things I lived through worth it. I wanted to succeed. I wanted to give myself a decent life even if it was vastly different than what I’d always imagined. I wanted to do work I was proud of that would allow me a small savings for a rainy day.
I was smart enough, that I knew. That was all I knew.
“I don’t know,” I finally said.
Decisions, decisions, decisions, with little opportunity.
“Seems to me you’re being given a chance to figure out if it’s something you’d like. I know Valor Holdings. They’re a respectable company. Not too large you blend in, not too small you stand out.”
“So I should call.”
She ignored me and kept talking.
“I think David Valentine has done a lot of good for this community and he’s as stand up as they come, but working for him is your call. If you want a character reference, I can only go off what I read in the papers and see at fundraising events, but he’s always come across as a trustworthy guy.”
He did.
He absolutely did.
With those sad, sad eyes I liked so much.
Hudson had them too, sometimes, when he talked about his family.
“I’ll call,” I said, surprising myself. The decision came out of nowhere, or maybe it didn’t. Maybe I’d already decided I would but needed the go-ahead. Either way, my heart thumped a bit faster and my hands warmed.
“Now?” She tilted her head to the side and I caught her soft, encouraging smile. At least I thought that’s what it was. It was hard to tell with her sometimes.
“When we’re done.”
“I’m happy to step out while you do, give you privacy in case you want to talk after.”
“He’s probably busy.”
“You’ll never know until you call.”
She wanted this for me. She’d never offered specific help before, and I wasn’t exactly sure if it was professional. Between the Valentines’ offer to help, my therapist’s change in demeanor, and Ellen’s calls to take me to dinner when we didn’t have to meet so frequently… it hit me like a surprise kidney shot that all of these people were helping me, beyond what they were required to do.
Emotion rose and burned my throat, spilling out from me before I could stop it.
Was it actually possible they didn’t all look at me and see the wasted life of an ex-con, but someone who could do something good? Turn all the ugly twisted things I’d done into something better?
“It doesn’t have to be today,” I said quickly into the phone. The speed of my words matched the pacing of my feet. True to her word, Nancy stepped out while I agreed to call.
I didn’t expect to give my name to the operator and be immediately sent to David’s line. It was Thursday. He should have been working and yet he seemed to have all the time in the world for me once I introduced myself on the phone.
“No, no. Today is good. Great, actually. I can be free whenever you can get here.”
I glanced down at my worn clothes. For a moment, I’d considered dashing outside Nancy’s building, running to the bus stop and being there in thirty minutes.
That couldn’t happen.
No way could I walk into their office looking like this.
But if I waited too long, I could lose my nerve.
“Um. Monday might be better,” I mumbled, playing with my ponytail.
“Monday would work.”
He sounded disappointed and a sharp pinch ached in my chest.
“It’s just…” God. He already knew my history. Some of it anyway. “I’m not dressed right and that might take some time.”
“Come however you feel comfortable, Lilly. We have a relaxed dress code around here. My offer didn’t extend on a time limit either. All I want to do is talk. Figure out what you might be interested in or qualified for, that’s all.”
If I waited until Monday, I’d probably think of a thousand more excuses why this was a horrible idea and never show up.
Wasn’t this what I wanted? An opportunity? A chance to be someone more than who I’d been forced to become?
“Okay. Okay, today works then, but it’ll take me a few hours.”
“I’ll let the front desk know to send you up. No rush.”
“Okay. And thank you.”
“No, Lilly. Thank you for this opportunity. Truly. See you soon, okay?”
I said okay and hung up, feeling that strange sensation in my chest again and that weird warmth spreading through my blood.
Hudson hadn’t been lying. It made Mr. Valentine happy to help me.
What kind of man was he?
“Only one way to find out,” I muttered.
After a quick stop at Target to buy myself a dress—hopefully on the clearance rack—I headed to Valor Holdings.
12
Lilly
I stepped off the bus one stop early to give myself time to relax and prepare. Throughout the late morning and early afternoon, I questioned this decision so many times my head started to hurt. After a quick trip to Target where I found two dresses, I bought them both without trying either on. A twelve-dollar dress on an out-of-season clearance rack had never felt like such a glorious splurge. Thankfully, I had a gray cardigan in decent shape to cover the spaghetti strap sleeves, making it almost weather appropriate.
The sky was overcast and there was a slight breeze, chilling my arms beneath the sweater. I hugged it over the olive-colored dress that was speckled with cream flowers to my sides as I crossed the glass-bottom bridge, careful of the pain in my side. It was getting worse as the day went on, probably from all the walking I’d been doing, but I did my best to ignore it.
The rushing river below helped calm my racing nerves, soothing me while I dragged my eyes off the building ahead of me to the water below. Valor Holdings itself was a non-descript orangish-red brick building no more than ten stories high. It could have been anything. Yet, within those walls were two men who’d become an enigma to me, and the possibility of a future I was still fighting to keep dreaming of.
Sure, I was going to community college, but at one time, I’d been destined for Purdue.
I went to prison before I graduated from high school with a four-point-three grade point average.
The first few years of prison were the hardest, despite finding a core crew of women who had my back. They were older, but Candace forced them to help protect me, and Candace might not have been the warden or in charge of the prison, but I learned quickly fellow inmates didn’t go against her.
Hell, she’d been inside so long she had four degrees by the time I left. Studying and getting an education helped her focus and kept her having goals despite the fact she’d never again be free. She was seventy-eight, but I’d bet my meager life savings and parole she would get at least two more degrees before she passed. She tried to convince me for the first two years to take the GED courses offered to all inmates. It took me that long to take her up on it, another year to actually do it, and then a year went by before I started taking classes through the prison inmate program with the same community college I was currently attending.
With all of that, though, the courses felt like wasted effort. A heavy sorrow filled my soul every time I passed a class. It was virtually impossible not to remember the applications I filled out for my first teenage jobs, that section I scoffed at and even harshly judged when it asked if you had ever been convicted of a felony.
Forevermore, that box would be checked yes. Due to my sentencing and plea, I would have to explain that when I was eighteen, I killed my brother while driving under the influence.
I would be judged from the day of the accident until eternity and sometime
s that burden wrapped around me like quicksand, slowly sinking me, pulling harder when I fought against it and hoped for something normal.
To be the girl I should have been.
My steps stalled at the front of the building as my heart pounded inside my chest.
This wouldn’t end well. For me. For them.
And yet, damn it. I knew me. I was intelligent. I’d studied hard in school. There was a time I believed I could have been somebody important.
Why did I always have to think and assume the worst now?
Nancy asked me that question frequently. Give me the name of an ex-con who’s done something amazing with their life? I’d asked her once.
She’d had no reply for me.
But earlier that morning I had hope, believed, even if it was the tiniest amount, that there were people in the world, in this city, who believed in me, who were willing to help me become at least a fraction of who I could have been.
“You can do this,” I said, earning a side-eyed look from the gentleman next to me.
He yanked open the door and walked in first, holding it and giving me an irritated glance.
“Sorry.” I skittered in behind him. “Thank you.”
He strolled forward, business shoes clacking on the tiled floor, and yet he was wearing jeans in new condition with a short-sleeved polo shirt.
Thank goodness I went to Target. I fit in based on a quick scan. David hadn’t lied about their relatively casual dress code.
It made my heart skip a beat. Small measures of honesty mattered when I hadn’t been able to trust much.
Noticing what looked like the main desk, hard to miss with a security guard standing behind a woman around my mother’s age and a wall of plexiglass, I headed there.
“Lilly Huntington to see Mr. Valentine, please.”
Her nameplate said Cori Lawson. I glanced at it and then attempted a smile. My pulse raced with trepidation. Behind her, the guard stood firm. Bald with a mustache and a gut and gun at his belt, it was his fierce expression that held my focus.
Like he knew who I was and what I’d done and he was watching me.
“Yes, Lilly. David told me he was expecting you.” She held out her hand. “I just need to see your ID, please.”
My gaze went back to the surly security guard. With shaking hands, I reached for my purse. “Why?”
“To make your visitor badge.” She might as well have added a duh to the end.
I gave her my ID, cringing at the highlighted words “Identification Card” beneath Iowa instead of Driver’s License. It wasn’t often the different look made people pause and if this woman noticed, she didn’t say anything.
“Thank you.” She took it, scanned it in front of a small machine and then that machine whirred to life, printing out a piece of paper.
She handed both back to me. The paper wasn’t paper, but a sticker, complete with my name and VISITOR stamped in bold, black ink.
“Do I need to wear this?”
Another blank look from the woman. “Yep.”
Right. Obviously. I tore off the paper and tossed it into a small basket on the counter filled with similar crinkled paper and tucked my ID away.
“Eighth floor. You can head on up.”
“Thank you.”
“Elevators are to your left.” She gestured. “Have a great weekend.”
My gaze flickered to the guard. His expression was the same.
“Th-thank you,” I jumbled the words and ducked my head so he couldn’t see how nervous he made me.
Fortunately, the elevators arrived quickly and I waited for at least a half-dozen people to step out. Smiles on their faces. Lunch bags draped over their arms while they happily chattered about weekend plans.
I watched them go with envy filling my veins and stepped into the lift.
Alone. Thank God. I exhaled and pressed the button for floor eight and settled into the back corner.
“Lilly.”
David called my name, walking toward me at a quick pace. I glanced up from where I’d been looking at the floor to see the remnants of a smile fall from his face. “What happened to you?”
I brushed my hand to my cheek. “Nothing. It’s okay.”
“It’s absolutely not okay.” A heavy, heated pulse of anger surged toward me, and I stepped back, not from fear of him, but in surprise.
Tears beckoned. In one fraction of a moment, he showed me more care and concern than my own father ever had.
“You’re right. It wasn’t okay, but I’m fine, or I will be. And I didn’t come today to discuss this.”
Wrinkles pierced his skin as he narrowed his eyes. He lifted his hand as if he wanted to brush away my scrapes and scabs before he shoved his hand to his hip. “Will you please tell me what happened?”
“No.” For the first time since I met him, the two letters left a tang of disappointment on my tongue.
It made no sense, but fortunately, I wasn’t given time to consider why I’d care about disappointing someone I didn’t know. A beautiful woman with thick dark brown hair almost to her waist glided out of a room behind him.
“David. I have everything set up for you in the conference room you requested.”
He peeled his gaze off my cheek and temple and turned, holding out an arm. “Thank you, Stephanie. Stephanie, this is Lilly Huntington. Lilly, this is my assistant, Stephanie. She’s a lifesaver and I wouldn’t be half the success I am without her.”
Stephanie rolled her eyes and stepped forward, a polite but friendly smile kicking up the corners of her mouth. “It’s nice to meet you, Lilly.”
She held out her hand and I shook it. How strange to shake hands and be looked at like that. Like I was someone important, someone worth knowing. A soft warmth filtered from her silky smooth palm to my hand, up my arm, landing in my chest.
It was probably because she didn’t know who I was, where I came from, that allowed her this ease.
“And David is full of it. I just get him coffee and maintain his calendar.”
“A man cannot live disorganized and uncaffeinated,” David joked.
Stephanie was close to David’s age, if the small laugh lines were any indication. My guess was she dyed her hair to keep it hiding the grays, but even most likely twenty years older than me, she was gorgeous. And she had hair to die for.
Her fingers were expertly painted, heels shiny and high quality but she was still casually dressed in a lightweight skirt and simple cream blouse with a thick bow, tied off at the center of her throat.
She moved effortlessly on her heels, guiding us toward the conference room and it was then I realized I was grinning at their friendly banter.
“You’ll find, Lilly, David prepared for your visit, or had me do it, if I’m being honest. But there’s a notepad and pens on the table for you along with files requested. Would you care for anything to drink? I can get some tea or pop?”
“Water. Please.” My throat was parched and scratchy.
“For me as well, please, Stephanie. And let me know if anyone stops by?”
“Will do. Is Hudson coming?”
“I’m not sure.” David checked his watch as my heart thrummed an alien rhythm.
The silly muscle and organ seemed to have a mind of its own these days. So I had a burgeoning schoolgirl crush on a handsome man. Big deal.
“Very well.” Stephanie smiled in my direction again. “I’ll be just a few moments.”
She left, leaving me alone with David. He brushed his hand over his chin. “I’d very much like to know how you were injured since Hudson told me this morning he saw you last night and didn’t mention this.”
I stayed still, hands curling into fists. I could still smell Manny’s breath on my cheeks and feel him in other places. The three showers I took to scrub the remnants of him off me did nothing to my memory.
When I didn’t say anything, David sighed. “You sure you won’t tell me?”
“No.”
What good would it do?
I wasn’t pressing charges. It’d be my word against Manny’s and while I had no doubt he’d had his run-ins with the law, my history wouldn’t make me a reliable witness.
“If you change your mind—”
“I won’t.”
Another pause, his well-aged features tightened around his eyes and mouth before he pushed his lips out and gave a quick shake of his head.
“Very well. Would you like to see what I had Stephanie prepare for you?”
“Sure.” I took my seat where Stephanie suggested earlier and like I did every time I sat down for class, scribbled the date in the upper right-hand corner of the first page of the notepad.
David sat across from me with his own file, but he didn’t open it. He clasped his hands together on top of it. “Can I ask what changed your mind? Not that I wasn’t thrilled to hear from you earlier, but prior to that, Hudson told me he still wasn’t certain what you’d do.”
I tapped pen to paper, my skin tightening. “I haven’t had a lot of goodness in my life and I don’t trust easily. Hudson told me about your family, the foster kids. I’m still not sure why you want to help me, but I don’t think it’s wise to turn my back on this opportunity.”
A soft smile stretched his lips. That pleased him. For some reason, I was quick to wipe it away.
“That doesn’t mean I’m going to take this, but I think it’s worth considering. That’s why I’m here.”
“And I’m glad you are.”
Stephanie returned with our water glasses and set them on coasters near us along with a small bowl of cut lemons that reminded me of the creamer bowls at Judith’s.
“I’d have to give Judith notice,” I said. “So if I agreed to anything, or even got a job here, I wouldn’t be able to start immediately.”
“I would expect nothing else from you,” David said, in a way his approval warmed me to my bones.
He took a lemon and squeezed it into his water.
“Take some time and glance at the jobs we have in that file. If anything sparks your interest, we can discuss. Or alternatively, you can tell me more about your schooling. What would you do if you could do anything?”